No Unlimited PTO

It's a psyop!! Of course there will be exceptions in teams and leaders who offer unlimited PTO and genuinely mean it, encourage it and offer it without any strings attached. But honestly, even if that was the case (is it ever?) would that also make any sense?

From our perspective, at least a huge majority of the time, unlimited PTO in practice translates to confusion, shame, guilt and a whole lot of never taking enough time off. When there is an inherently unbalanced power dynamic between employer and employee, how on earth could we expect the employee to feel comfortable and confident taking advantage of an unlimited amount of time off?

Realistically most will take far less time than they should to appear harder working, some will take the same as what they would normally receive on average (and feel shittier about it in the process) and then some will take much more and either put their job security in peril or inspire the ire and jealousy of their peers.

Any way you look at it, this is not a good move for culture. It is a big three consulting firm creation that allows companies to appear generous and actually save money. Boo.